vSphere in Workstation 6.5.1

[HenrikElm]

I successfully ran ESX 3.5 U4 in a Workstation VM. I Could power on 32-bit systems on top of the ESX in turn and all was working fine. Now, with ESXi 4, I try the same thing. I can install fine, insert hosts in a virtual VC 4.0 server and create a VM on top of the ESXi 4. But when I try to power on this VM on top of the ESX, I get an error saying that DRS could not find a host with enough RAM. My two virtual ESX hosts each have 2 GB RAM ( I run Vista 64-bit as base OS with 8 GB RAM) and no matter what amount of RAM I give the VM (even tried as low as 100 MB), I can not power on the VM on top of the ESX running virtually.

Can it be done? Why does it behave differently compared to ESX 3.5? I have of course done the hacks needed in the VMX-file to get it running. I would really really need to get this working in order to be able to do PoC and education without the need for a bunch of hardware.

Do I need to use WS 6.5.2? Could it be that easy?

/Henrik

[Scissor]

6.5.2 is a free upgrade. Don't know if it will fix this issue, but I'd try upgrading if it was me.

[HenrikElm]

Yes. I guess I'll give it a try. But it would be valuable to know if anyone successfully got a complete VI4 setup running in WS? Including being able to run VMs on the virtual hosts?

/Henrik

[depping]

Yes, I'm running two ESX 4.0 hosts and vCenter on my laptop within VMware workstation including a nested VM.

Duncan

VMware Communities User Moderator | VCP | VCDX

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[HenrikElm]

Ah! Sweet! And that VM in turn is able to boot, say, Windows Server 2008?

Do you use WS 6.5.2 or 6.5.1?

Did you do any other editing to get it running apart from adding the two magic lines in the VMX?

What processor do you use? I use a AMD Phenom CPU with RVI enabled.

/Henrik

[HenrikElm]

??????

If I remove the host from the cluster, the nested VM starts just fine?

So.. I guess my question now is: Does anyone successfully run a HA/DRS cluster in Workstation and is able to start a VM on a host that is a member of said cluster?

/Henrik

[rmrobert · Accepted solution]

It sounds like DRS is looking for extra memory as a buffer. What if you make your ESX VMs 2.5G or 3G of ram each? I would expect it works then.

[java_cat33]

I can run nested VM's within a vSphere cluster on WS 6.5.1 - haven't tried W2K8 guest yet - will try and let you know.

[HenrikElm]

Yes! This seem to be it! I gave the VMs for the ESX hosts 2,5 Gb RAM instead and now I can start VMs with no problem!? After boot, some 720 Mb seem to be used by the system on the host. And I tried to use far less than the 1,3 GB that should be left for VMs, but still it wouldn't power on. Well, I'm happy to have it running anyway. Now I will start to try out all the features of vSphere.

Do we know how much RAM VMKernel wants to have "left" in order to power on VMs? In my case, it seems to be almost a GB?

EDIT: I run a nested Win 2008 server without problem. Very nice! I cant get Data Recovery to work anyway, it cant logon? Very strange? All else looks fine? All runs on Win 2008 64-bit.

/Henrik

[HyperViZor]

It sounds like DRS is looking for extra memory as a buffer. What if you make your ESX VMs 2.5G or 3G of ram each? I would expect it works then.

Very nice tip rmrobert, thank you for that...

Hany Michael

HyperViZor.com | Virtualization, and everything around it